Cobra Good Curry Guide 2013 Reveals Award Winners

The Cobra Good Curry Guide 2013 has revealed the very best of the country’s 9,000 Indian Restaurants.

Now in its 30th year, the 11th edition of the A5 size paperback has 384 full colour pages, enhanced with dozens of colour pictures of restaurants and their food. Each restaurant entry contains details on food style, quality, price, service, vegetarian availability, BYO, takeaway info, home delivery service and more. New features include website details and postcodes to assist navigation. 

From the 9,000 Indian Restaurants and Balti Houses restaurants in the British Isles, the new guide features 1,000 entries, including the A-List which identifies those restaurants which are well above average and Top 100 List  - the second tier of high achievers.

This year the top curry award has gone to the Painted Heron in Chelsea. The capital does well in curry charts but other areas of the country have won rave reviews for their restaurants.  Moksh in Cardiff, Massala in Cobham, Surrey, and The Ambrette Margate, Kent and Rye, East Sussexare deemed the nation’s best.

The Best UK Chef accolade is shared between went to Yogesh Datta, Painted Heron, Chelsea and Steven Gomes, Moksh, Cardiff.

The Guide's introduction continues the tradition of carrying fact and fun features including a 30 year look-back on the Curry Club's history, the Currination, a light-hearted look back on our nation's currinary activities since the last edition, a Cobra recipe section and a survey of unusual pickles.  The Guide's definitive menu glossary has been updated to reflect increasing regional and more sophisticated curry offerings.  Also featured is an alphabetical town index and county maps.

The latest edition of the guide reveals West Yorkshire is the strongest performing area outside London with 14 entries in the top 100. And other well-known curry capitals, such as Birmingham and Manchester, also feature strongly in the list.  Chapman added: "These areas are traditional strongholds. But, as the book shows, there is an even spread of quality restaurants across the country. It's my job to whittle and identify them."

The internet provides copious restaurant information, but its informants and critics are largely anonymous and therefore the reliability of their reports lack credibility. The Guide's strap line is "Britain's Top Restaurants as chosen by you", and the information is compiled with the help of hundreds of members of the public, all of whom are listed in full and many of whom have been reliably reporting for years.

Every restaurant listed in the Guide is entitled to display a 2013 wall certificate, signed by Pat Chapman.

Mr Chapman founded the Curry Club in 1982, to share information about recipes, restaurants and spicy foods.His network of reporters led to the publication of the Good Curry Guides.  Among its fans are broadcaster Sir David Frost, 73. He said of the guide: "It tells you everything you want to know about curry." And celebrity chef Delia Smith, 71, wrote: "With it he has done the nation a real service.”

FULL LIST OF 2013 Cobra Good Curry Guide BESTS

BEST IN UK

Painted Heron, Chelsea, SW1   

BEST UKCHEF

Yogesh Datta, Painted Heron, Chelsea, SW1

shared with

Steven Gomes, Moksh, Cardiff

SOUTH

The Ambrette Margate (& Rye) Kent BEST IN  SOUTH  EAST

BombayBay   Southsea Hants   BEST ON SOUTHCOAST 

Brilliant  Southall  Middlesex  BEST IN OUTER LONDON, WEST

Chez Mumtaj St Albans HERTS  BEST IN HOME COUNTIES, NORTH

Mango Lounge  Windsor Berks  BEST IN HOME COUNTIES, WEST 

Massala   Cobham    BEST IN SOUTH ENGLAND 

Sesame  New Malden    BEST IN OUTER LONDON, SOUTH

NORTH OF ENGLAND

Akbars Bradford (2), Leeds (2), Birmingham, Manchester, Middlesborough Newcastle, Rotherham, York and Glasgow    BEST UK GROUP

Ashoka Sheffield  BEST IN YORKSHIRE 

Gulshan Liverpool     BEST IN MERSEYSIDE  

Valley 397 Newcastle    BEST IN NORTH EAST 

MIDLANDS

Anoki  Burton, Derby,  Nottingham    BEST IN MIDLANDS 

Curry Fever  Leicester Leics  BEST IN EAST MIDLANDS  

Maharaja Birmingham  West Midlands    BEST IN WEST MIDLANDS 

Tamarind  Northants  Northampton        MOST INNOVATIVE CHEF 

Calcutta Brasserie Milton Keynes  Bucks     BEST IN HOME COUNTIES 

WEST OF ENGLAND

Koloshi   Cheltenham   Glocs  BEST IN GLOCESTERSHIRE 

Mysterica  Bristol                     BEST IN THE SOUTH WEST  

The Palm Marlborough Wiltshire  BEST IN WILTSHIRE 

Rajdoot  St Ives   Cornwall    BEST IN CORNWALL  

Viceroy Yeovil, Axminster and Bath    BEST IN THE WEST COUNTRY 

SCOTLAND

Balaka   St Andrews  Fife  BEST IN NORTH SCOTLAND

Mya, Edinburgh, Lothian  BEST IN EAST SCOTLAND

Shish Mahal Glasgow    BEST IN WEST SCOTLAND

Verandah  Edinburgh  BEST OVERALL in SCOTLAND

WALES

Moksh   Cardiff   Glamorgan  BEST IN WALES

Bengal Dynasty Shotton & Llandudno  BEST IN NORTH WALES 

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